A "Daddy Special"

C requested for his birthday party a "Daddy Special." That means, a party that J plans and executes to wow and amaze. Two years ago, we had a science party with many experiments and explosions.

This year the theme for the party was Dangerous Book for Boys. Codes, a rocket, remote control cars, BB guns.

Eight boys converged on our backyard. The first activity involved a robotic sprinkler. The boys had to see if they could retrieve the canister guarded by the sprinkler. The sprinkler detected motion and would go off when they got close. For the first time ever, J wrote software for a party activity!

Inside the canister was a piece of paper with a QR code, which is a scan-able bar code. Some gibberish came up on a smartphone when the QR code was scanned.

On the other side of the paper, written in invisible ink, were the words "Caesar Cipher 4."  C pulled out his Dangerous Book for Boys since he remembered it had codes and ciphers in it.

The book said that every letter is shifted by a certain number. One boy decided to write out the alphabet and take the gibberish and decode it systematically.

The result was "Birthday's Boy's Nickname," We thought this would be easy to figure out but C's friends didn't know his nickname. One boy was able to guess it out of the blue. Taking those letters C and one friend turned the switches on a box (switches for each letter of the alphabet) which launched an ethanol bottle rocket with a message inside.

The rocket shot out of the top tree house and landed on the ground.

A map was inside of the bottle. It was cut into jigsaw pieces and written in invisible ink. The map was of our yard.

The boys eventually found the "X" where the treasure was buried.

The treasure was a plastic box (dug out of the ground) which contained remote controls for two RC cars.

We went out to our cul-de-sac where the boys took turns operating the RC cars. The goal was to use the RC car to push the cardboard box through the goal posts (two flower pots). The 2nd car played defence. Inside the box was the artillery (BBs) for the next activity.

J had the boys use BB guns to shoot some cheap pottery which was hanging from string. We were surprised at who was the best shot. A quiet boy who is our pastor's son. He could shoot better than my husband J! I don't have photos of this activity since I had to leave to pick up the ice cream cake.

C opened his presents and we had cake.

After that was over, the boys played hide and seek and used the tree houses and sprayed each other with water guns. J & I vowed that this is the last elaborate birthday party we throw!








Pin It

The Seahawks weren't the only team to win this weekend.

My hubby's robotics team had a great day Saturday at the SemiFinals competition.

At the end of the day his team (Robogators Team 1) had the 2nd highest score in the robot competition. They would've had the highest if they hadn't forgotten a single piece of Lego. Ouch! They won an award for Robot Mechanical Design. My oldest son is on the team (far right on photo above) and my youngest son was a helper. A is doing programming and C can build Lego like nobody's business!

J and his co-coach Dave.

Only 10 teams advanced to the State competition and they are one of them. This competition will be on January 31st. It is the best 30 teams in Western Washington.

The other team from our school was 5th in the robot competition and they won an award for Strategy and Innovation. They are also going to the State competition.

This is what it looks like at the table, during the robot competition:

The kids wore custom lab coats with their names on them and gator tails made of foam.

I'm happy that this year the competition will be on this side of the mountains, unlike last year when the meet was in Ellensburg, and in February.



Pin It

A Great Dad

My husband is a great dad. Right now he's unclogging a toilet. On Father's Day.

I'm going to brag about him a bit. He is a software engineer. Super smart. Do you know he turned down M.I.T.? He went to one of those snooty east coast ivy league schools. He did his Master's degree in a year.

He works hard for our family. He loves his job but his family is more important to him than his career. He teaches Sunday school and his pupils love him. He is also a Cub Scout leader. He coaches the robotics team at our school. He's done robotics coaching for three years now.

He built two tree houses in our back yard for our boys. He's working on putting roofs on both of them.

He's very funny. He is passionate about protecting the unborn.

My boys love my husband and so do I. Happy Father's Day J!Pin It

Robotics

Our robotics team and coaches Dave and J

Yesterday was the regional qualifiers competition for First Lego League (FLL). My husband started the program at our school two years ago. This is his 3rd competition and the best one yet! Our school fielded two teams (of middle school students) this year and they both did extremely well. This is my favourite photo (of the scoreboard) since #1 and #2 are both from our school!

For the uninitiated, Lego Mindstorm is the robot.

The kids program the robot to complete missions. Each year there is a different theme. This year it was Nature's Fury (natural disasters). Last year it was Senior Solutions. It is timed (2 minutes) and the robot has to deliver Lego objects, bump them, or retrieve them. In our team's mission, it released the plane, pushed the ambulance, retrieved the pet dog and pushed the truck into the safe zone. The atmosphere at the (all day) competition is pretty crazy. Loud music, other teams wearing funny hats and outfits, loud cheering, etc.

The kids and the coaches worked so hard. They started in September and met twice a week for 3 hours each session. At times, I felt like an FLL widow. :)

Team One won two trophies (for performance and innovation)

and both teams from our school will advance to the next competition in February.Pin It